eruthros

I would squee if I were the squeeing type: Martha (soulcake) has finished her gorgeous Sentinel/Stargate SG-1/Angel/overtones-of-Lovecraft horror story Tatters, which is a heck of a lot better than my description makes it sound. It's a sequel to Lovely, which can be found at her main page. Y'all remember "Lovely," right? It's that story with the Lovecraftian white city and Daniel influenced by the Light and evil taking the form of IRS agents? That one. Anyway, "Tatters" is fun and gorgeous and has a plot that makes your brain twist and is just generally wheee!

/ rec for the day

Speaking of crossovers, I want to read more crossovers where people try to put things together and get them spectacularly wrong. Like this story Martha just finished. Or torch's China. None of this "Methos shows up, says 'hey! demons!' and Giles says 'you know, there are these other watchers -- are you immortal?' and it's all wrapped up in the first five pages" crap. Really, folks. We watch the show; we've got the background. It makes sense to us. But just think of all the interesting ways other people could read the characters wrong! (And no, thinking Methos is a younger immortal than MacLeod doesn't count.)

Look at Blair and Jim -- tons of exciting stuff going on there, but usually in a whisper. We hear it. Other people don't. And Blair is the one who looks like he doesn't belong. So imagine Mulder putting all of that together and deciding that Jim's just a cop, but Blair's psychic. Or -- even better! Genetically engineered by the Consortium! Maybe he's a runaway from a secret government project! Maybe Blair's not even his real name! (Sadly, Jim and Blair get injured so much on the show that even Mulder couldn't think they were aliens or hybrids for more than ten seconds. Eventually one of 'em would be shot.)

Or maybe SG-1 shows up, and instead of Willow saying "hey, I've seen that arm patch on the internet -- you're part of some secret government project that travels to other worlds, right?" maybe people think they're from another dimension. Because aliens aren't a big part of the Buffyverse mythos -- but demons and dimensions are. Or maybe Buffy thinks they're a coven. Or trying to re-open the hellmouth. Or rogue demon hunters. We've got rogue demon hunters. Or, or, they could be from the Watcher's Council, trying to catch Buffy in a mistake. And what does SG-1 think of Buffy? The answer had better not be "hey, slayers! I read about those once in an article and because I am Daniel I know EVERYTHING." No. They're just kids. They're idiots. They play war games, maybe. They're delusional. They're in a goa'uld's cult and that's how they seem to know something about alien technology (which they call "magic," the weirdos).

Remember early!Krycek? Does he look like an assassin? No. So maybe instead of RayK telling Fraser "he looked mad, bad, and dangerous to know, and probably was an assassin," RayKcould think "crap, how many young lawyers do we need on the case? Plus I bet Stella falls for him."

Please feel free to come up with your own examples. I'm pondering what Methos would think of Clark. (Hint: it's not "hey, an alien.")

For those of you who don't read officialgaiman or Neil Gaiman's blog at neilgaiman.com (and there are probably all of three of you), this is a very very important link:

A Study in Emerald.

Yup, that's his story from Shadows Over Baker Street, a book of short story Lovecraft-Holmes crossovers. (Discussion of that book inspired mlechan to begin to write her first fanfiction ever -- Holmes/Cthulhu eldritch tentacle pr0n.) And the story's been nominated for a Hugo -- that's why it's online, along with all the other nominated short stories, novellas, and novellettes. A really, really powerful story, and I think my favorite of the selections, although of course I read the book in the bookstore and that was a while ago so I might have forgotten something.

If you've got a moment, you should go read it. Even if you don't know anything about the Lovecraft universe.

(ETA the total random note that it's 55 degrees outside and foggy and overcast -- the exact same weather as in the East Bay right now. It'll get horrible by mid-day, of course, but right now it looks and feels like the Bay Area. When I walked down the hill this morning, the sun was muted and the trees across the way were obscured by the mist over the river. *happy sigh*)

(Edited again to add: there are a few characters in Gaiman's story who are never identified by name, just by obscure reference to canon. You can certainly read the story and still not care who they are -- I mean, it's no big deal. But if you do care, leave me a comment and I'll tell you who they are and how we're supposed to know. In nice white text, even, so's not to spoil it for anyone else. Although I can't imagine it being a spoiler. But some people are really anti-spoiler.)

Recc'd on one of my lists today:

Harry Potter/ST:TOS. With Spock and Snape. Not quite having sex. Sorta mind-meld sex. Something. *mind boggles* By Florahart.

Then we have this, which I stumbled across by accident. Methos/Spock, by someone named Kiristeen. WIP, I think, although maybe it's no longer IP. I don't know anything about the author.

I should really finish that off with a Methos/Snape, to complete the circle, and I happen to have one on offer, also randomly clicked through to. Here it is, in all its ff.n glory: Methos/Snape. Sorta. Methos is Merlin. He's the last of the Magi. (I do not think that means what she thinks it means.) Methos and Snape look to be getting together someday, but aren't yet. They just can't be more than 100 feet from each other, because of a complicated plot contriv -- I mean, spell.

This has been your daily broadcast of weird crossovers. I make no statements about the readability of any of these stories. Because, I mean, whoa. Weird stuff there.